MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 02nd March, 2021) The Russian-US Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) was long buried and it would be extremely difficult to revive it, Russia's upper chamber speaker, Valentina Matviyenko, expressed the belief in her interview with Sputnik.
"As for the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, I believe it was buried, and it would be extremely difficult to revive it," Matviyenko noted.
The bilateral nuclear disarmament deal, which was signed back in the late 1980s to ban all short-medium (310-620 miles) and intermediate (620-3,420 miles) range ground-launched missiles, was terminated on August 2, 2019, after the United States had formally suspended its obligations six months earlier. Later, Russian President Vladimir Putin presented a new initiative to address tensions that started growing in Europe after the US withdrawal from the deal. In particular, Putin said Russia was ready to abstain from deploying 9M729 missiles in its European territory � if NATO made reciprocal moves.
